Akhbar Al Youm: Moulay Ishmail?

Morocco’s ministry of interior ordered the seizure and banning of independent Moroccan newspaper Akhbar Al Youm for three days in a row, 26-28 September, 2009. According to a ministerial communiqué, the banned paper published a caricature of Mouly Ismail, the cousin of Mohammed VI, as he was celebrating his wedding with as a backdrop a Moroccan flag centered by… a Star of David. Taoufik Bouachrine, the owner of the newspaper, inveighed against the government’s decision to ban the Monday and Tuesday prints of his newspaper since the controversial caricature was published over the weekend. He denied the caricature depicted a Star of David. The Wiccan star on the Moroccan flag lacks the criss-crossing pattern shown on the caricature of Akhbar Al Youm.

The government is charging the newspaper with disrespecting a member of the royal family and flagrant anti-Semitism. It confiscated the newspaper’s offices and publishing locales. In an unusual course of action by the royal family, Mouly Ismail decided to sue Akhbar Al Youm for defamation.

The Moroccan government has grown increasingly sensitive to the country’s independent media as they broached subjects considered verboten. Its judicial and political cannonade of independent journalists and artists, and the newspapers and magazines they work for belies its averment it advocates and protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Some observers pointed out that the government stands as the backstage instigator of the ad hominem bickering plaguing the independent media these days.

Knowing the story behind the rift between Bouachrine and Nini of Al Masae, the latter is going to have a field day with this one.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Morocco Updates: M.A.L.I, Zainab, Israel

Bite size morsels of information to keep you abreast of stories you care about.

M.A.L.I: Much Ado About Nothing
Zainab El-Rhazoui, the confounder (not the co-founder) of the Alternative Movement for Individual Freedoms (MALI), finally reappeared last Wednesday. Apparently, she was hiding at a friend’s house as she was worried the police would brutalize her. After her reappearance, she was questioned for eight hours and let go. Of course, if the authorities did not raise Cain by dispatching over a hundred police troops to the Mohemmadia train station, nobody would have noticed MALI. How the government was alerted to MALI’s plan is subject to speculation. It did not stop at that; Morocco’s Council of Islamic Scholars (Oulemas) publicly condemned the group and its intended act, Chakib Benmoussa, Morocco’s minister of interior, rallied the leadership of Morocco’s political parties and civil associations to express their strong disapproval, Moroccan media filled its pages with elongated articles on the two bits of information available. Al Massae, the unofficial official newspaper, went so far as to publish chat transcripts hacked from Facebook. I, myself, wrote about the issue stating that MALI’s action was ill-advised and lacking courage; the right of Moroccan citizens who were born Muslim to embrace a different religion is worthier. The government couldn’t have hoped for a better opportunity to sidetrack the nation’s attention from its recent setbacks such as its diplomatic blunder in Libya, the hike in consumer prices, the rise of violent crimes, the spiking unemployment rates, the communal election debacles. So much so that I believe if MALI did not exist, the government would have created it.

ZAINAB: The pressure is on

Zainab and the judge

The case of Zainab Shtet, an eleven-year old maid that was tortured by her employers, a judge and his wife, is still dragging. The defendants are still free to roam as they please. In fact, a few days ago, the judge and his family visited Zainab’s village, in the region of Taza. They slaughtered a sheep outside her parent’s home, a long-standing tradition in the area designed to amend for an offence. Through intermediaries, they offered Zainab’s father enticing monetary incentives and exerted tremendous social pressure for him to drop the charges; he refused. Using his connections in the judicial circles, the judge was also able to have the description of Zainab’s injuries changed from “lasting” to “superficial” and the charge lessened from a felony to a misdemeanor. In an ideal Morocco, the judge’s actions should lead to an array of criminal sanctions. The removal of this judge from his tenure should constitute a positive first step toward the judicial reform Morocco’s king advocated in his last speech. According to Moroccan human right associations, Morocco counts between sixty and eighty thousand underage maids. Since the story of Zainab broke, a number of demonstrations have been organized requesting the government’s involvement to protect them.

ISRAEL/MOROCCO: Not public yet
According to reports from numerous news outlets, Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs and its Deputy Prime Minister, secretly met in New York, Thursday 24, 2008, on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly activity, with his Moroccan counterpart Taïeb Fassi Fihri. The Moroccan government has neither denied nor confirmed the news. Relations between the two countries have thawed out since U.S. president Barack Obama’s letter to Mohammed VI requesting Morocco’s proactive assistance in ending Israel’s isolation in the region. Meanwhile, protests against the normalization of relations with Israel continue to be organized by various pro-Palestinian and human rights associations in Moroccan cities. The Moroccan authorities have been tolerating these demonstrations to bolster its image as a striving democracy. On Saturday 25, 2009, a request to organize a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Marrakesh was denied by local authorities. When the organizers objected to the refusal, they were confronted by an overwhelming police force. Some suspect the government’s refusal to authorize the pro-Palestinian demonstration has to do with the five-day 26th International Population Conference being held in Marrakesh since Sunday and which is attended by an Israeli delegation. Aside from the fact that Morocco will stand to benefit from an open relationship with Israel, it is the only way the Israeli/Palestinian issue could be resolved. The emotionally charged and slogan-filled rallying cries to push Israel to the sea are unavailing. It occurs to me now that I have never seen in Morocco a demonstration against affluent Gulf citizens coming to Morocco for sex tourism.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Regional Vigilance, Global Effect

The recent arrests by Morocco ‘security services of twenty-four members of a terrorist network reinforces the country’s position as a viable partner to the U.S. in the global war on terrorism and a major contributor to regional security. The arrests culminated a sophisticated operation that required coordination and deconfliction between multiple security and intelligence disciplines in a number of towns and cities across the kingdom and extensive cross-cueing between Morocco’s territorial security department and U.S. military intelligence and European law enforcement assets.

Judging from the scope of its operations, the network arrested is a fully functional consortium of cells each with a specific mission and leadership; one cell was in charge of spotting and assessing potential candidates and their recruitment; the logistical cell organized the housing and transportation of militants in and out of the country and the procurement of weapons and equipment in support of operations; the operational cell conducted casings of possible targets and was in charge of the execution of operations. The network was operating in conjunction with other terrorist support cells in Sweden, Belgium, Syria, and Iraq. According to the Interior Ministry, it was recruiting and channeling suicide bombers to support Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and Somalia; prior to its arrest, the network was in the process of recruiting ten volunteers and had sent twenty militants to fight in Iraq. Members of the group were scheduled to receive training on explosives from Al Qaeda operatives and were planning large scale attacks in Morocco.

Copyright AFP

In the past two years, the Moroccan government has refocused its security posture to address a growing national security threat; the change came in response to security warnings issued by U.S. forces heavily engaged in combat against Al Qaeda in multiple areas of operations. Based on the interrogations of detained insurgents and the document and media exploitation of their sites, the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point published reports indicating that foreign fighters hailing from as far as Morocco and Algeria constitute a tremendous impediment to regional stability. In Iraq, foreign fighters constitute no more than ten percent of Al Qaeda ’strength, but make up ninety percent of the suicide bombers. As Al Qaeda was being forced out of its strongholds in Iraq and Afghanistan, Moroccan militants from its rank and file returned home steeped in guerilla warfare and tempered by combat. In July 2008, Moroccan security forces dismantled a terrorist network in Tangier and neighboring cities arresting thirty-eight of its operatives. Forty-three others suspected of links with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb are charged under anti-terrorism legislation and are awaiting trial. Last week, five Mauritanians were arrested at the Moroccan/Mauritanian entry point Bir Guendouz with a substantial load of 7.62 rounds.

There is a need for a sensitization campaign targeting the pool of potential candidates Al Qaeda recruiters approach. According to the CTC, the majority of foreign fighters are lured into Iraq and Afghanistan with promises that they will be fighting Americans; the majority of Al Qaeda operations in those countries are indiscriminately directed at local civilians and infrastructure. Some foreign fighters are used as drivers of vehicles that are, unbeknownst to them, loaded with explosives and remotely detonated in crowded areas. Morocco’s increased vigilance and steadfast campaign to eliminate the terrorist threat in the region and undermine its global effects are commendable and will most likely be lauded in the 2009 U.S. report on Morocco’s Terrorism Countermeasures; the number of Moroccan militants entering Iraq and Afghanistan has drastically diminished. However, I believe Morocco ‘security forces are still reactive, the effectiveness of the security measures in place limited and their gains tactical as long as improving the economy, creating employment opportunities, and heeding to the needs of the citizens are not a priorities.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

The Libyan Hobo

A van belonging to the Manhattan Psychiatric Center and transporting one of its most serious mental patient was involved in a serious accident, early morning, Wednesday, September 23, 2009, in the Turtle Bay neighborhood, just around the corner from the United Nations headquarters. No injuries were noted, but the patient, who is said to be suffering from psychiatric comorbidity and excessive manifestations of hubris, escaped. He was later spotted at the United Nations Assembly lecturing world leaders to sleep.

All joking aside, there is a reason why it took Qaddafi, the king of kings, the leader of leaders, the imam of all Muslims, forty years to finally step before the United Nations Assembly, He wasn’t ready. Based on today’s speech, he still isn’t. During his ninety-five minute diatribe, flailing yellow pages on which he had scribbled notes, he ranted about the security council calling it a “terror council,” advocated his perspicacious political solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, lamented the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King and shared his hunch they were caused by conspiracies, then tossed a copy of the U.N. Charter like a Frisbee, and purported the swine flu is a military or a corporate weapon. He called the U.S. President “our son.” Reinforcing the belief that dictatorship is genetically ingrained in Africans, he called for Obama to be a president for life. At one point, he admonished the audience for not paying attention to his speech asking them if they were jetlagged; he proposed the United Nations Headquarters be relocated to Libya or China. He concluded by promoting his website. Qaddafi himself looked exhausted, which is understandable since he couldn’t find a place to pitch his tent; he was turned down by major hotels and real-estate agencies in New York. Not even the Charles Gay Assessment Shelter would take him in. I doubt the next recipient of “Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights” will be a New Yorker.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

The Naked Truth About MALI’s Eating Disorder

Photo by Spencer Tunick

I resisted commenting on the arrest of the six members of the e-group “Alternative movement for individual freedoms,” known as “MALI,” who crash-landed on reality and caused much of a bedlam in Morocco recently when they decided to eat publically during the fasting hours of Ramadan in an attempt to call for the abrogation of article 222 of Morocco’s penal code. I thought the group vain, their protest self-serving and quixotic, their initiative worthy, but their judgment poor. Their actions were those of a temerarious group of privileged youths who, despite living in Morocco, lack perspective on the social trepidations of the average Moroccan. I also thought the group lacked courage. Why call for the right of Morocco’s Muslims to disregard Ramadan if so they choose when the real issue is the right of Morocco’s Muslims to tergiversate on Islam?

Article 222, which stipulates that any Muslim who publically breaks the fast before sunset during the month of Ramadan will be punished by the law, holds within it quite a contradiction; how can a person be considered a Muslim if he decides, out of his own volition, not to fast during Ramadan, one of the five pillars of Islam incumbent on all Muslims? One has to wonder what criteria the government uses to determine the denomination of Moroccans. Is a Moroccan a Muslim by virtue of his pedigree, or his public proclamation of faith and his actions in support of its fundamental precepts? It is no wonder that some observers saw in the group’s action a stand against the flagrant hypocrisy permeating the Moroccan society. But such hypocrisy is hardly an idiosyncratic character of Morocco or Islam; all cultures and religions are hypocritical. Hypocrisy is not an inconsistency in religious theory for the quest for enlightenment is a sempiternal process. Samuel Johnson explains it best in “Rambler No. 14” when he says:

Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.

In protesting against the prohibition of public eating during fasting hours, MALI stood against not the Moroccan government, but the majority of Moroccans. As restrictive as article 222 is, it is also protective; its drafters took into serious consideration the dormant fanatic strain inherent in Islamic thinking. If the MALI group carried out their plan to untimely break the fast publically and the police did not get involved, its members would most likely be lynched by a heterogeneous crowd whose members would regard them as “natural apostates.” Its potentially mortal actions would be justified by the prophet Mohammed ‘saying:

“Whoever amongst you sees anything objectionable, let him change it with his hand, if he is not able, then with his tongue, and if he is not even able to do so, then with his heart, and the latter is the weakest form of faith.”

“MALI” failed to realize that article 222 is in complete concordance with article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states:

In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

Indeed, one cannot advocate individual freedom without stressing the importance of individual responsibility. Embracing an ethics of unfettered individualism will cause any society to fragment. Even in the U.S., where individualism was described by Alexis de Tocqueville as fundamental to its character, the cohesiveness of society is recognized; Mormons, for instance, understood this when they acquiesced to federal and state laws prohibiting polygyny, a practice that was instrumental to the survival of the sect in the 1800s. Individual freedom does not constitute a license to contravene existing values of institutions that are designed to, not restrain an individual, but uphold the integrity of a community and maintain the civility of its members. A naked man calmly wandering in public places would be arrested in any city, be it Rabat, Paris, New York City, or Tokyo, and individual freedom would never be considered a vindicating justification.

The Moroccan authorities saw in MALI’s eating disorder an unparallel opportunity to subvert the serious efforts of those calling for legitimate reforms. It rallied political, social, and governmental entities to condemn opposition activists whom it painted as deleterious to the values and the unity of the Moroccan society. So, thank you MALI.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Are Morocco And Algeria Gearing Up For Arms Race?

On March 2008, I reported on Morocco’s purchase of 24 F-16 Block 52+ fighter jets from Lockheed Martin at a cost of $2.4 billion dollars (read it here). The purchase was in response to Algeria’s March 2006 $8 billion military and technical cooperation agreement with Russia $1.3 billion of which was allotted for the purchase of 29 single-seater MiG-29SMT fighters and six two-seater MiG-29UB fighters. Algeria terminated the contract in 2007 upon receipt of the first batch of MiG-29s which, after a technical inspection, were deemed defective and of inferior quality than stipulated. To redeem itself, Russia renegotiated the contract and offered Algeria new MiG-35 Fulcrum fighter aircraft and 16 Su-30 Flanker fighters. The Russian government also approved a $2.5 billion contract between Irkut Corporation and the Algerian government to supply the latter with 28 Su-30MKA fighters by 2010. In June 2009, The Algerian ministry of defense signed a contract with Agusta Westland, an Italian company of the Finmeccanica Group, to purchase 100 helicopters of various nomenclatures for its gendarmerie, police, and civil protection agency. The Finmeccanica Group is already committed to equip the Algerian navy with 6 AW101s helicopters and 4 Super Lynx 300 MK 130.

On September 9, 2009, Morocco was able to secure congressional approval for the purchase of support equipment and weapons for the F-16C/D Block 50/52 in conjunction with its F-16 contract with Lockheed Martin. The package is valued at $187 million and includes 28 AGM-65D Maverick missiles, a tactical, air-to-surface guided missile designed for close air support, interdiction, and defense suppression mission against a variety of tactical targets. It is developed by Hughes Aircraft and Raytheon. An F-16 can carry up to 6 Mavericks. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, a government entity that promotes military-to-military contacts in support of U.S. foreign policy and national security interests, has indicated that Morocco was also approved for the purchase of 28 M-61 vulcan cannons, a Gatling-style rotary gun produced by General Dynamics, and 60 enhanced Guided Bomb Unit-12 (GBU-12) Paveway II, a laser guided bomb (LGB) that utilizes a Mk82 500-pound general purpose warhead. Additionally, Morocco requested the installation of communications, air combat pods, targeting pods, ground stations, night vision goggles (NVGs), joint mission planning systems, and radar warning receivers. This latest procurement will increase the interoperability between the U.S. and Morocco and enhance asset capabilities in bi-lateral terrorism prevention operations in the region.

Earlier this year, a Moroccan air force delegation led by Colonel M’hamed Saufi toured Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. Personnel from Morocco’s Royal Air Force are currently being trained at Luke’s and 162nd Fighter Wing airbase in Tucson, Arizona on the mission support, maintenance of F-16 and the organizational elements involved in the base operations of a fighter wing, i.e., civil engineers and fire department, communications, logistics readiness, security forces, and base services. Morocco is currently building an air force base specifically designed to support F-16 operations.

It is worth noting that, with $5.4 billion worth of arms contracts, Morocco is the third top-buyer of military hardware and weaponry in the developing world in 2008, surpassed only by United Arab Emirates, with $9.7 billion in arms deals, and Saudi Arabia, with $8.7 billion. The United States holds 70.1 percent of the arms market; its arms sales in 2008 totaled $29.6 billion. Russia comes in a far second with $3.3 billion.

Considering that Morocco and Algeria are embroiled in a diplomatic dispute over “Western Sahara,” analysts are voicing serious concerns that the two countries are gearing up for an arms race that will upset the delicate status quo balance of the increasingly bifurcated Maghreb.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

The Star-crossed Lovers

The National Action Group for Solidarity with Iraq and Palestine and its chief coordinator, Khaled Soufiani, in conjunction with other Moroccan human rights and civil activists and associations organized, on September 9, 2009, a demonstration in the heart of Morocco’s capital Rabat in support of Palestine and to protest the discernable traits of normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel. The demonstrators inveighed against the establishment of the Amazigh-Israeli Friendship Association, the selling of Israeli products in local markets, and the recent distribution of Israel Magazine by Sochepress. Mr. Soufiani, reflecting stock thinking in the Moroccan society and the Arab street in general, was quoted saying that “the normalization of relations with Israel is treason and whoever supports it is a criminal and complicit in the atrocities Israel perpetrates on the Palestinians.”

Morocco and Israel severed diplomatic relations in October of 2000 when their respective liaison offices in Rabat and Tel Aviv were closed. However, unofficial political, economic, and non-conventional military contacts subsisted. There have been no official communiqués from the governments of Morocco and Israel on the subject. Israeli news outlets, however, have been reporting with added frequency on the growing economic and cultural relations between the two countries. Last month, the Moroccan defense attaché attended the farewell party of Israel’s military attaché to the U. S. Major-General Benny Gantz who, in July 2006, led Israeli ground forces into Lebanon; According to Sam Ben Chetrit, chairman of the World Federation of Moroccan Jewry, Mohammed VI hosted, two months ago, a high-ranking delegation from Israel which included Knesset members and community leaders. American and European journalists known to be advocates of Israel’s agenda have recently been writing overly favorable articles about Morocco in which they extolled its laicism, economic development, and advance toward democracy.

As protesters were chanting anti-Israeli slogans and burning the Israeli flag in downtown Rabat, thousands of Jews from around the world, to include Israel, were gathered in Essaouira in a Hailula pilgrimage to the shrine of Rabbi Chaim Pinto, a Jewish saint. For that occasion, the mayor of Essaouira, Nabil Kharoubi, hosted Jewish dignitaries in an official reception attended by representatives from the local government and political parties. The reception included a joint prayer. Similar Jewish pilgrimages to the shrine of Abraham Ben Zmirro, in Safi, and others throughout Morocco have been taking place since the eighties and constitute a substantial source of revenue to Morocco’s tourism industry. Last year, more than eighty organized groups travelled to Morocco to celebrate Sukkot. With this year’s Jewish high holiday season approaching, thousands of Israelis plan on celebrating Rosh Hashana, September 18, and Sukkot, October 2, in Morocco.

To tap into this market, Yambateva, one of Israel’s largest travel agencies, has announced its merger with Maroc Tours and anticipates opening its local offices in Marrakesh. The offices will be staffed by locally employed personnel and managed by Yambateva envoy David Edri.

Heeding U. S. President Barack Obama’s call for greater Arab openness toward Israel, Morocco is reported to be willing to grant a blanket airspace clearance to Israel’s commercial aviation and reopen Israel’s liaison office in Rabat. Qatar, Oman, and Egypt are taking similar measures. Without fanfare, Egypt has been refurbishing dilapidated synagogues. Just last year, when asked in Parliament about the presence of Israeli books in the Alexandria Library, Farouk Hosni, its Minister of Culture replied: “Let’s burn these books. If there are any, I will burn them myself before you.” When Elie Wiesel, Claude Lanzmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy denounced him in an articles titled “The Shame of a Disaster Foretold” published by Le Monde and called for his candidacy to the UNESCO’s cultural conciliator-in-chief to be rejected, Mr. Hosni, humbled and contrite, publicly apologized for his opprobrious words against the Jewish culture and assumed a more conciliatory tone. He has shown a degree of openness when he invited Daniel Barenboim to conduct the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, and pledged to translate the works of Israeli writers Amos Oz and David Grossman into Arabic.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Morocco: In Dire Need Of Journalistic maturity

Every time a Moroccan newspaper or magazine is banned from publication, a journalist or an editor investigated by the government, freedom of speech advocates and international media, like El Pais and Le Monde, cry wolf. They refuse to look beyond the fact that the government is “harassing” journalists and “suppressing” freedom of the media. They mount a campaign decrying the actions of the government as if they were unjustifiable, as though unethical, biased journalistic reporting were a myth.

The undemocratic quiddity of our government has been descried countless times before; It is an undeniable fact that the Moroccan government has sought to muzzle the independent media when it denounces its authoritarian practices, uncovers the suborn schemes of its elite, and calls for political accountability. Yet, when journalists who are more thrilled to see their names in print than to serve the public’s need to be informed publish information that is exaggerated and sometimes false, the authorities need to intervene. Often, when the government reacts to such conjectural and sensationalistic reporting, it is easily denied the benefit of the doubt and its actions are immediately labeled repressive and undemocratic. We forget that the mark of a free and responsible press is its obligation to stave off disinformation, especially the kind concocted by foreign intelligence services and designed to undermine Morocco ‘stability and adversely affect its economy.

When, on 26 August, the Palace, uncharacteristically, issued an official communiqué informing the nation the king is convalescing due to a viral gastroenteritis (commonly known as stomach flu), Al-Jarida Al-Oula, Al-Ayam and Al-Michaal larded the report with speculations. Al-Michaal’s front page read: THE SECRET BEHIND THE KING’S ILLNESS; Al-Jarida Al-Oula’s Bouchra Edaou, citing an anonymous medical source, reported the cause of the king’s rotavirus infection as the abuse of corticosteroids to treat asthma; her article further assumptively reported that the king’s illness prompted the cancellation of his scheduled trip to Casablanca and a Ramadan religious conference; the government requested an investigation be conducted and Ali Anouzla, the editor-in-chief of the paper, and Mrs. Edaou were promptly called in to be questioned on the source of their information. Journalists from Al-Ayam and Al-Michaal were also summoned and questioned. Based on accounts by other Moroccan journalists, the government is trying to determine if the journalists used foreign sources who might be harboring ill-designs for Morocco. I don’t see in this a government campaign to squelch dissent. Allegation on the seriousness of the king’s illness could have adverse effects on Morocco ‘stability and economy. The U.S. followed the same course of action when it investigated Judith Miller, a New York Times journalist, on her implication in compromising the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA officer and the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Miller ‘source was no other than I. Lewis Libby, then the Chief of Staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby provided the information to Miller at the behest of Cheney and in retaliation to former Ambassador Wilson’s lack of support to the Bush administration’s efforts against Iraq.

The issue is not comparing outing a CIA operative and the king’s stomach flu; the issue is what constitutes national security level information. Unfortunately, in Morocco, speculation about the king’s health the way Al-Jarida Al-Oula, Al-Ayam and Al-Michaal is tantamount to divulging classified military information.

I agree that the fact remains most efforts by the Moroccan government toward journalists are to squelch dissent. And I agree freedom should be unconditional and freedom of speech should be unhindered. But I also know that ultimate freedom is chimerical and freedom of speech unbridled by a personal conscience and a sense of responsibility is detrimental to society; we cannot, under the banner of freedom of speech, say and write false allegations knowing the end result could very well be aggravating. In the U. S. for instance, the First Amendment is looked at not independently, but through the prism of the fighting-words doctrine.

You would agree, I am sure, that simply by the extent of their influence on the public, the responsibility is even greater on journalists. Disinformation is a cardinal sin serious journalists take extreme measures to avoid – assessing the source’s placement and access, qualifying his/her knowledge, validating the information.

No journalist in Morocco will deny this fact: Al-Jarida Al-Oula, Al-Ayam and Al-Michaal DO NOT have sources with the placement and access required to report the information they published on their pages. Other than what the official communiqué put forth, there is no other information available. We are left with two possibilities: either they are speculating and feeding the public misinformation, or they were being fed information by an entity which has a highly placed source within the king’s entourage. I am going on a limb here and say that the only entity with the savoir-faire, funds, and assets to run that type of operation is an established, government-run, foreign intelligence service. Some in Morocco suspect it’s Spain’s.

We don’t need self-proclaimed serious political newspapers dedicating their front pages to speculate on the king’s every sneeze and cough and divert the public’s attention from grave issues such as the recent utter failures of Morocco’s craven and politically naïve diplomats in addressing the Western Sahara issue. We need an independent media that exercises not self-censorship, but good judgment and selflessness in the conduct of their duties; one that adheres not to Delphic influences, but to personal conscience and unwavering character. Freedom is a greater responsibility; Al-Jarida Al-Oula, Al-Ayam and Al-Michaal demonstrated in this particular case that they could not strap it on and take charge. Let’s hope this is nothing more than a snag.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Zainab

Zainab Shtet photo by Alalam newspaper

I cannot imagine what the life of Zainab Shtet is like. And nor can you. Her father, Mohammed, compelled by dire financial circumstances, placed her as maid for a pittance when she was barely ten. His excuse can never abrogate his responsibility in his daughter’s unspeakable ordeal. Her employer is an affluent family of five, a husband and his wife and their three sons, living in a large villa in the swanky Al-Wahda neighborhood, in the suburbs of Oujda. The husband is a judge, an arbiter of justice, a guardian of society’s moral compass. Zainab, who is eleven-years old today, was their servant, their beast of burden, their slave. And much like when Moroccan nobility owned slaves, the dignified judge and his family thought they had the right of life and death over her.

A few days ago, Zainab was found badly injured, disoriented, and running for her life away from the family’s home. She knew not where to go, to whom to talk; she was weak and hysterical, still a short distance from her employer’s villa, when she drew the attention of passersby. They stopped her. Their eyes widened in horror and their jaws dropped to the floor when they discovered the extent of her injuries.

Zainab looked emaciated. Her body was bruised and bleeding from beatings. She was branded on her lips with a red-hot iron. She was burned with boiling oil on her chest and private areas. She was illiterate. She never experienced the joy of playing with friends. Her future was decided for her: trudge around the mill till the day she dies. And a few days ago, she almost did.

The case of Zainab is a shocking reminder of how the mentality of some members of our society is still encapsulated in a primitive time we thought was long dissolved by our civility and modern education. It is an indicator the feral violence we thought subdued still writhes beneath the surface of our perfunctory affability. For I think that, albeit Zainab’s plight was exceptional in its savagery, the unlawful employment, physical, mental, and sexual abuse of underage children is a pervasive problem in a Morocco where employing maids is believed to elevate one’s social status. The issue fronts and centers only when the insidious abuses are discovered, which often happens by sheer happenstance.

The application of the law to the facts should serve justice in this case for the facts are undeniable. However, there have been precedents in Morocco’s judicial annals where exonerations were impossible, and yet justice was never served. The Moroccan justice system is replete with decisions warped by corruption and partnership. The judge-perpetrator has already been reported trying to hound the victim’s father to settle the matter out of court. I am sure there is a gaggle of judges whose behavior in private circles does not comport with the principles of human rights and decency and who themselves employ underage children siding with him.

The father of Zainab is guilty, the judge and his family are guilty, and we as a society whose indifference exacerbates and prolongs the victimization of these children are equally accountable. Often when there is an outcry, it is too late, but the signs have been present all along and we chose to ignore them. The judge’s apathetic neighbors have been witnessing the torturers’ contemptible depredations against zainab for months; they heard her tormented cries and screams, their insults and the dastardly beatings.

I am reminded of a speech Mr. Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel gave at the White House in 1999 “The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees — not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.”

Let us not betray Zainab.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009